BLOOD GUTTERS
(C)1992 Alan M. Schwartz
Much to my surprise and delight, I had the grand indulgence of
sitting in attendance of (but not being involved with) a series
of hearings held before the Honorable John E. Byran (name changed
to protect my assets) of the U.S. Bankruptcy Court, Central
District of Columbia. Bankruptcy is theoretically elaborated to
conserve the vital assets of an individual or business lamentably
financially insolvent and hounded by predatory creditors.
Bankruptcy is functionally a legal means to borrow other
individuals' assets, party them all away, and get away with not
being held to the rigors or necessity of repayment. Black-clad
Judge Byran sat at a very high bench indeed, softly spoke into
his microphone, and frowned with distaste as procedural and
punitive catastrophe cascaded downward to devastate a putatively
slick lawyer's day. He whispered fines, penalties, and thinly
veiled threats to dismiss the case toward the initially
aggressive attorney. Said counselor was ignorant of Rule 121 of
a set of procedural complexities arbitrarily set forth by the
judge and his clerks to define the operation of their courtroom.
That solicitor suddenly hemmed and hawed, sweated and visibly
trembled in place, and departed much the wiser and $150 in fines
lighter. This was fun!
The next group of shysters hitched their grey serge trousers
preparatory to being admitted before the bar. In the interim I
looked about the room and noted shallow troughs leading from the
bench, running along each wall, and finally leading to the far
corners of the chamber wherein they terminated at sunken
stainless steel drains. I am not aware of the architectural term
for this fillip, but on an autopsy table they would be called
"blood gutters."
My woman, Attila the Honey, Esq., was defending a bankrupt
grocery coupon reimbursement center. Those ten and twenty five
cent chits had backed up to a multi-million dollar default! Lest
Cap'n Crunch suffer the same debilitating fiduciary trauma as
General Motors or New York City, the matter was being subject to
litigation. This was the second of five spatially and temporally
distinct but legally simultaneous proceedings. I watched as 14
lawyers - that is $2100/hour in labor alone - verbally readied
the playing field for the eventual bulk of their colleagues'
efforts.
They jawed, singly and collectively, for an hour and more as the
judge stonily presided behind his vaulted fingers. They probed
civil code and moral imperatives. They explored the mellifluous
concatenation of justice, the law, and precedent recorded since
the signing of the Magna Carta. They swam within the warm
embrace of Rule 121, and were not sullied. They were elegant and
shrewd and avoided coming to any conclusion whatsoever. Near as
I could tell there was not even common agreement as to what the
questions might be. A bubble of silence suddenly bloated as a
grey-haired junkyard dog in grey flannel slowly walked forward to
the dais. He spoke and spelled his name for the court recorder,
and scratched his side.
The room filled with his dry voice. "Considering the several
thousand individual retailers potentially involved as litigants,
I find it disturbing that no provision has been established to
place in guard of escrow an established stipend of court-mandated
attorney's fees."
He found it disturbing. The rest of the lawyers launched into
communal apoplexy, then unanimous agreement. They short-
circuited a multi-week process by immediately submitting verbal
petition to the court to assure their own reimbursement. The
judge listened. The judge concurred. The elegantly suited crowd
resumed its aimless jurisprudential ramblings. They moved for a
continuance, and the judge acceded to their wishes.
The crowed departed for the corridor, where the real bargaining
began. Each barrister defended his client's interest without
quarter or compromise while emptying those same clients' pockets
with all deliberate celerity. Who said talk was cheap? My honey
flashed her eyes and spouted code, paragraph and subparagraph,
until it was finally over and we could go home.
Our government representatives and our media pundits decry the
Japanese who would seem to so effortlessly and successfully
savage the American economy. We would be led to believe that a
country with fewer than one twentieth the number of lawyers per
capita as America has some sort of competitive edge that will
destroy us. The solution is obvious. Sue the bastards!